The invention relates to a steering mechanism, especially for an aircraft and is capable of providing a different control characteristic in response to different control parameters, for example, to provide larger excursions of a controlled member, such as a rudder or flap when the aircraft is flying at relatively slow speeds and to reduce these excursions when the aircraft is flying at high speeds.
A steering mechanism of the just described type is disclosed in German Patent Publication (DE-AS) 1,225,502. The known mechanism comprises substantially two lever arms of about equal length. One end of each lever arm is interconnected with the respective end of the other lever arm by a common journal or pivot joint so that the angular position of the two lever arms relative to each other is adjustable.
The known mechanism is so constructed that the translation factor is variable between a maximum value and zero. The known mechanism may be used in connection with the steering rods for a control surface as well as in connection with the steering rods of a control nozzle of glider airplanes equipped with a jet control. In such glider airplanes the effectiveness of the aerodynamic rudder steering control which diminishes with the decreasing aircraft speed, is compensated by the correspondingly increasing effectiveness of the jet steering control. Said prior structure constitutes a good solution for the problem of how to compensate for the diminishing effectivenes of the steering surfaces of an aircraft when the latter reduces its speed. However, the known structure comprises a large number of bearing points and levers whereby it becomes trouble-prone. Additionally, it is difficult to construct the known mechanism as a so-called redundant steering control mechanism comprising duplicated control means.